for sojourners and exiles, dearly beloved (1 Pet. 2:11)

The Humility of Faith

I’d been reading Cornelis P. Venema’s very helpful work on Calvin titled, Accepted and Renewed in Christ: The Twofold Grace of God and the Interpretation of Calvin’s Theology. One of his thoughts:

One prominent feature of faith, and one which is implicit in this antithesis between faith and works, is its humility. Faith contrasts with the righteousness of works and plays such an instrumental function in our justification precisely because it humbly ascribes the whole substance of salvation to God’s grace in Christ alone. Without this humility of faith, it is not possible to enjoy Christ; it would be incongruous for us to embrace him without recognizing and conforming ourselves to his exemplary humility in “abasing himself from the highest pinnacle of glory to the lowest ignominy!” According to Calvin, only “those who have learned humility in the school of the cross” can expect to partake of that blessedness which Christ freely gives to those who trust in him. Only through the humility which characterizes true faith, a humility which consists in the acknowledgement of our need and in yielding to God’s mercy, can we find salvation and rest in God. Faith justifies us because it refuses to assert its own right or cause before and apart from God’s grace, claiming thereby a position of relative independence and self-sufficiency in his presence; it justifies us precisely because it eschews every from of self-justification before God. For faith alone knows that “our humility is God’s loftiness,” and that the acknowledgment of our need “has a ready remedy in his mercy.” (p. 105-6)